Nduta Waweru considers herself a reader who writes. Like a duck, she’s calm on the surface, but she’s always busy paddling underneath to get you the best stories in arts, culture and current affairs. Nduta has published a poetry collection called Nostalgia, is a YALI Fellow and a member of Wandata-Ke Network.

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks, an activist in the civil rights movement, is famously known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The boycott was started by black people to protest the policy that required them to sit in the back of the bus, something they considered demeaning. The policy also allowed the driver of the bus to ask black people to stand up for a white passengers to sit.

After a long day at work, Parks got in a bus and sat with three other people in the back. A white passenger got in the bus only to discover that all the seats in the white section were taken. The driver was then forced to ask the black people to get up to create space for the white passengers. The other three agreed but Parks refused.

Parks was arrested for this move and was later charged with violating segregation laws. She was given a suspended sentence and fined $10 plus $4 in court costs. The news of her arrest provided the momentum for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was so effective that it gained the attention of the nation.

In 1956, the bus segregation law was deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, providing a much-needed victory to the Civil Rights Movement.

For Parks, this were not so rosy. She lost her job and was forced to move to Detroit with her husband and mother to join her brother.

Parks would continue engaging in civil rights activism throughout her life. She died on this day in 2005 aged 92.

Here are some of the inspirational quotes this civil rights icon will be remembered for.